The ever-increasing accessibility to numerous facilities by the handicapped using wheelchairs demands chairs having greater convenience of operation and greater versatility of use.
One very common problem encountered by wheelchair users is the difficulty and sometimes the impossibility of the chair occupant passing through a doorway or other passageway which is narrower than the chair when the chair is fully extended in its normal use width.
The prior art contains teachings of means to adjust the widths of wheelchairs but generally these devices are rather costly and of a nature requiring that they be built-into the chair by the manufacturer. A more simplified device for adjusting the width of a folding wheelchair is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,264,085, issued to Volin. This patented device involves a hand crank and screw shaft adjuster which operates in conjunction with a folding hinge across the chair transversely between its two vertical side frames. Turning the crank in one direction results in narrowing the chair width. The device can be operated by the chair occupant and can be installed on the wheelchair readily by the owner of the chair instead of by the manufacturer.
The objective of the present invention is to provide a wheelchair width adjuster of an even simpler and less expensive nature than the device disclosed in the above Volin patent. The present invention is embodied in a simple manual hand lever pivotally installed on one side frame of the chair and operable in a swinging mode initiated by the chair occupant to cause partial lateral folding of the chair seat and chair frame to provide greater mobility through restricted passageway. The device can be provided to chair users as an attachment kit for existing chairs which can easily be installed by chair owners. It is very efficient and quite inexpensive compared to all known prior art devices. The device requires little effort to operate and is entirely safe.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent during the course of the following detail description.